Page 49 of Locked and Loaded

Or maybe she didn't need the key at all. The front hall had a window. A small one, high up, but she'd glanced at it while she was crouched by the bag. It looked out onto what might have been an alley. The glass was old and set in a wooden frame that hadn't been replaced in decades. Wood that old could be pried loose. A window that small could still be climbed through, if you were desperate enough.

And she was desperate enough.

She walked back to the kitchen with her head high and her shoulders squared. Dragan was still at the table, finishing his tea. He looked up when she came in, and something in his expression shifted, not much, just a flicker, but she caught it. He noticed she’d changed.

"The clothes fit," she said, and sat down across from him.

"I can see that," he said as he ran his gaze over her.

She tried to will the heat out of her cheeks. There was something about being seen by this man that made her stomach do flips like she was on a ride at the fair. She should thank him, but couldn’t force her tongue to form the words.

Instead, she poured herself another glass of tea and helped herself to another date. She took her time with it, chewing slowly, letting the sweetness spread across her taste buds. She was suddenly, strangely calm. She had a job to do. She was good at her job. The kiss was irrelevant. The embarrassment was irrelevant. The way he was looking at her right now was irrelevant.

"So," she said. "You're going to interrogate me. Let's get on with it. What do you want to know?"

Dragan studied her for a moment. She could see him recalibrating, trying to figure out what had shifted. Good. Let him wonder.

"Start at the beginning," he said. "Your sister. When did she go missing, and what made you start asking questions about the Society? I need every detail."

Lennox took a sip of tea and began to talk. She went over the whole thing again, this time in much more detail.

She told him about Chloe. About Ibiza. About the beach party and the spotter who'd invited her sister and her friends, and how Chloe's friends had stumbled out drunk and never noticed she was gone. She told him about the months of searching, the dead ends, the people who'd refused to talk and the ones who'd talked too much. She told him about Katya and the helicopter and the Italian with specific tastes. She told him about Pablo, the spotter she'd tracked down and threatened with a knife, and how he'd mentioned the Lock and Key Society in a whisper, like saying the name out loud might summon something dangerous.

When she finished, Dragan was quiet for a long moment. "The Society didn't take your sister," he said. "But someone who knows the Society did. Someone is using it as cover."

She gave him a grudging nod. "That's what I'm starting to think."

"We need to find the Italian," Dragan said, stating the obvious as far as she was concerned.

“That was my next move until you burst onto the scene and kidnapped me.” She shot him what she hoped was a cold look. The reality was he had saved her. She saw that now, but she wasn’t about to admit it. And it didn’t matter because now she knew what to look for and that she needed to be on her guard constantly, expect the unexpected, and trust no one. That was the mode going forward. She’d thought she’d been doing that, but now she was seeing for the first time that she wasn’t even close.

"Then we look together."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're going to let me help now?"

"You just told me the truth, all of it. So yes, you can help."

It wasn't an apology. It wasn't an admission that he'd been wrong to handcuff her. But it was something. A crack in the wall. A door opening, just a little.

Lennox reached for another fig and let herself smile.

It was small. Barely there. But it was real.

"Good," she said. "Then let's get to work."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dragan stared at the screen and conceded defeat. Right now, the only thing he knew for certain was that Chloe had been taken by some Italian man. But that didn't answer any real questions. Was this Italian a member of the Society? His instincts told him no. It was a possibility, and one Armand was tracking down, but something felt off about it.

The Society was supposed to be a big secret. No one was supposed to talk about it. But there'd been rumors for years, and after Remi Tanger had asked the Callahans about it, he'd done some poking around on his own and discovered that her grandfather had been one of the founding members. It had just seemed logical to dig a bit.

Mostly, the membership was comprised of power players, so this Italian could definitely be a member. For the most part, however, they were smarter than to get involved with trafficking. He doubted many of them would attend auctions for girls. There could be outliers, so he wouldn’t rule it out. There were slime-balls at every level of power.

Still, something about it didn't sit right. He couldn't put his finger on what.

If the Italian wasn't a member, then the first person to talk to was Enzo Valardi. As a retired consigliere of one of the biggest families in Italy, chances were good Valardi would know who he was looking for.

Dragan picked up his phone and hit Kathleen Drake’s number.